Façade
by Fanatic Drone N
Summary: Chell's always tried to keep her emotions private, but sooner or later, the façade had to crack. Oneshot


It was really getting to her today.

She knew she should be used to it. She knew what GLaDOS was like, and she'd been subject to a stream of verbal assault ever since the mainframe had woken up. But the constant, unrelenting negativity GLaDOS spouted, the petty insults, the cracks about her weight, and the 'adopted' spiel were slowly wearing her down, and she didn't know if she could maintain her stony demeanor for much longer. And the surprise? Just thinking about it made her have to bite her lip and swallow the wave of emotion that rose within her.

Fighting off stress and fatigue, she shot a portal up at the ceiling to catch the solid-light bridge, and another at the wall to send a bridge out over the acid. As she walked across it to get to the door, the cruel voice started again for another browbeating.

"You know, I feel awful about that surprise."

Chell bit down on her lip and advanced towards the door. _Don't show emotion,_ she thought, _Don't say anything_.

"Let's give your parents a call." A string of cartoonish beeping noises emanated from the ceiling as Chell crossed the bridge. "_The birth parents you are trying to reach do not love you, please hang up. BEEP_."

She felt the façade start to crack. Her mouth began to twitch from its flat, emotionless line, and she felt her stomach heave involuntarily. She hurried through the barrier, hoping to get into the elevator before she broke down completely.

"Oh that's sad. But impressive. Maybe they worked at the phone company."

Chell felt another silent spasm cross her midsection, and two points of wetness formed in the corners of her eyes. _Almost there, she can't see you in the elevator_.

But GLaDOS saw her face, and the computer felt a wave of pleasure at finally beating her stony test subject. "Aw," She said with false sympathy, closing the elevator doors so she could enjoy Chell's pain longer, "Are you going to cry?"

That did it. Any semblance of control Chell had managed to maintain shattered instantly. She gasped in air, opened her mouth-

-_Here it comes, _GLaDOS thought with glee-

-and let out the longest, loudest laugh Aperture Science had ever seen.

GLaDOS watched in mute incomprehension as Chell bent over, as wave after wave of laughter rocked her body. She wept tears of sheer joy as she slumped down against the wall, thumping the ground with her hand.

"What…" GLaDOS said, slowly wrapping her mind around what Chell was doing, "What are you doing? This isn't funny! It's sad! Your whole life is sad! You don't have anything to be happy about!"

This sent Chell into further peals of laughter, pulling her hand out of the Aperture Science Handheld Portal Device. She tried to regain control over her body, snorted at a memory of some of GLaDOS' choice quotes, and fell back into hysterics.

"You-You-YOU'RE AN ORPHAN!" GLaDOS screamed, "YOUR PARENTS DIDN'T LOVE YOU! YOU'RE FAT! NOBODY LOVES YOU! STOP LAUGHING! YOU'RE MISERABLE, YOU IDIOT!"

Chell was howling with laughter by now, rocking back and forth until she eventually just slumped over sideways on the floor. Weeks of repressed emotion were pouring out all at once, and there was simply no way to stop them.

"This place," she eventually managed, "You-Pffft-Everything you say-" Here she bit down on her tongue to stop the laughter, "-It's just… It's just so _ridiculous_!"

GLaDOS stared at her in mute horror for two hideous minutes. She didn't even know what she was feeling right now. Humiliation? That sounded about right.

Eventually Chell recovered sufficiently to sit up straight, wiping her face off with the sleeves of her jumpsuit, giggling slightly every once in a while.

"So." GLaDOS said eventually, "You think I'm ridiculous. Why didn't you say anything?"

Chell looked up at the ceiling, and said the one sentence that could have hurt GLaDOS even more than the laughter.

"I felt sorry for you."

* * *

So yeah, just a little oneshot. I got why Chell never showed GLaDOS pain, but I always wondered why she never cracked a smile at all the pettiness. Just wrote this to see what would've happened is she had.


End file.
